


Your Campaign Manager would be excellent in the Zombie Apocalypse

by MymbleHowl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Lockdown Stay-at-home Coronavirus Covid-19, Past Abuse, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MymbleHowl/pseuds/MymbleHowl
Summary: Sansa expected she might feel weird running a House of Representatives Campaign out of her mom and dad’s old bedroom and that Arya might end up breaking things, and generally getting in the way during this bizarre time but now Jon says he’s bringing his new girlfriend home (and some hangers on?), Bran’s flying back from Oxford and her mom’s just texted to ask her to host Theon because he is coming onshore and apparently if Sansa doesn’t take him he could be stuck North of the border for months.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Bran Stark & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark & Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Your Campaign Manager would be excellent in the Zombie Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer – I have never published a piece of fan fiction (or indeed non-fan fiction before).  
> It is simply that my go to reassuring place in times of stress is imagining the Starks in the real world, but I couldn’t actually imagine them in Lockdown, until I thought about as some kind of run up to The Long Night riff. It’s not funny exactly, but I had fun writing it.  
> I know nothing (beat) about Covid-19 or the current economic situation beyond the brief snippets many people know, so when Bran gets all Third-eye raven about these things I’m making it up.  
> I know very little about Washington State (Twilight implied it was kinda rainy there), the Democratic party, cyber security. I’m British, Gods know why in my head the Starks are scions of US Politics.

‘So, mom wants me to take Theon.’

‘Take Theon where?’ asked Arya as she decimated the refrigerator in her attempt to build a sandwich.

‘No, she wants Theon to stay here.’

Arya took a bite ‘Why?’ she asked, spluttering flecks of mayo on the counter.

‘Something about him being stuck in Canada otherwise.’

‘I can kill him if you want.’

Sansa humphed, Jon would be hard to bear around Theon, she could imagine some talk about the rape and pillage of the earth, and then they would both look at her and it would be horrendous. After a moment she reconsidered, Jon was only that insensitive in her head; still he’s perfectly capable of having arguments about oil that are really arguments about something else.

‘Mom’s not coming here, is she?’ asked Arya after a while.

‘No, she’s staying in China, she thinks TulLabs might get a contract for a vaccine component and obviously…’ Sansa trailed off.

‘Good, cos if Petyr came, I definitely would cut his throat at the breakfast table.’  
  
Brienne, it turned out, was standing at the bottom of the stairs with tight lips about her sister’s murderous intent. So, Sansa went off with her, to show her face in a Zoom call with a third sector organisation providing an alternative to school lunches to vulnerable kids in the 10th. Followed by a call with Heck’s office about masks for care homes, and the absolute coup of 40 minutes with Governor Inslee, since TulLabs were shipping over reactants for 140,000 tests and reconfiguring the Seattle Lab for test processing.

‘So, on Friday, North West Tonight want to do an interview with you and Bran about Seattle Kids. I think celebrating healthcare workers would really chime with the times. Pod can do a practice run through with you and Bran on Friday morning. I assume he’ll be too tired…’

‘Yes,’ said Sansa cutting right in. She wasn’t sure whether Brienne would consider Bran quite right for spearheading her campaign on North West Tonight if she’d met him.

Just then Arya started whooping somewhere.

She careered into Sansa on the landing, and shouted, ‘Jon’s bringing Gendry!’

‘Who’s Gendry? And hang on I thought it was the girlfriend and another girl. Aren’t we supposed to be social distancing?’

‘Well, at least if it’s the Zombie Apocalypse we’ll have enough people to fight, I think your Campaign Manager would be excellent in the Zombie Apocalypse,’ crowed Arya.

‘She would,’ called Pod.

‘So he’s bringing the girlfriend, Dana-Dae-nerys, and her aide(?), and the aide(?)’s boyfriend and Gendry,’ Arya counted on her fingers.

‘Hang on 4, he’s bringing 4 people, who is Gendry?’

‘Just some guy I know, he and Jon follow each other, but I didn’t actually realise they knew each In Real Life,’ Arya couldn’t hide the capital letters.

‘How will we feed them all?’ asked Sansa.

‘Oh Pod’s brilliant at online shopping,’ said Arya breezily.

And she was gone. Sansa breathed a sigh and went back into Mom and Dad’s bedroom, or Mom and Dad’s old bedroom.

‘This could work out quite well,’ Brienne claimed. ‘Both your brother and Daenerys have high level contacts, they’re going to be in some important meetings for how the Democrats manage this nationally. They’ll be party to, if not part of, some key decision making here, you could build some important alliances.’

Sansa tried to stay as still as possible rather than kick something, and wondered how is it that Jon, who really is just a climate crisis fixated, barely educated, fuckwit who never holds with nuance, always falls into the key decision making process?

Also 4 whole people? Has he ended up with a girlfriend unable to master FaceTime?  


All of this was splurged on Bran because Sansa is a good sister and she’s not going to subject him to an Uber (Bran has a long and tragically comical riff on taxi/wheelchair based disasters, he sounds almost normal whilst delivering it).

Bran’s reply was ‘Well, actually the internet use generated by social distancing measures will impact on carbon emissions, so it’s perfectly possible that Jon could have a girlfriend who refuses to FaceTime.’

Followed by a Bran shaped pause.

‘I don’t think this girlfriend refuses to FaceTime, though, she actually has a pilot’s license.’

‘What? Where have you got this from?’

‘Oh, I read a profile on her last year…you know AOC’s Dynamic Chief of Staff.’

‘Last year? Jon hadn’t even met her last year.’

‘That’s true.’ replied Bran ‘She was born in Hawaii, she grew up, well everywhere, Dubai, Vienna, Shanghai, her parents are dead, her grandfather was a diplomat, who is now also dead, she went to Cornell, then Cambridge, she speaks 5 languages, she was married for 7 months at 20 to the son of a something-stan dictator.’

‘You don’t remember which Stan?’ said Sansa with somewhat of a sneer.

‘No, you know the kind of place I mean, one where they pay Mariah Carey 5 million dollars to sing Happy Birthday. She has a pilot’s license, after Cambridge she worked for Amnesty International, now she works for AOC.’

‘Ok’ said Sansa as she tried to imagine this globe-trotting, human rights defending polyglot and what on earth she might see in Jon.

‘As for whether I am in an at risk category,’ Bran continued despite the fact Sansa had never directly raised this, ‘and therefore at need of shielding, well the data is not yet sufficient to make any kind of judgement. I personally have no requests but if it is worrying you, you can put them in the guest house for 2 weeks.’

‘Arya would kill me, she’s barely seen Jon in forever, not to mention this Gendry.’

‘Put her in the guest house too then, Gendry is..’

‘No! don’t tell me’ Sansa shouted ‘Don’t tell me anymore about them.’

Sansa started to imagine she could put Theon in the guesthouse too, 7 people, in what was essentially a 3 bedroom log cabin. That could really create a hotbed of infection, which would definitely affect her election chances; Bright Young Things of the Democratic Party struck down with Covid 19 in Stark Family Guesthouse. She began to laugh. Bran ignored her.  
  
The Queen’s party, as Arya had started calling them for no obvious reason, had driven 2 days straight in an ostentatious red BMW hybrid that Sansa was surprised Jon had deigned to get into. Though later it turned out there had been some consideration of the carbon footprint and a train had been mooted, so Sansa was actually very glad that Daenerys had persuaded Jon into her shiny car.

The aide(?) and the aide(?)’s boyfriend were both very beautiful and looked daggers at Sansa, and in fact Jon and Gendry, and really anyone who wasn’t Daenerys. Sansa wondered why they were here at all. They were called Missandei and Grey, but Sansa didn’t like to ask if Grey was a first name, or surname, or nickname, since she was standing 6ft away on the driveaway and it was raining.

Daenerys, was stunning, with her white hair, smooth and neat despite 2 days ride in a car.

Then Ghost ran out and bounded up on Jon, and Jon was grinning, of course, and Daenerys was looking at him as if he was a tall, capable, black haired Ryan Gosling. Missandei and Grey looked even more daggers. The muscly awkward guy that Sansa assumed must be Gendry looked slightly surprised by Arya’s hug, since Arya had bounded up in much the same way as Ghost.

Sansa looked at Bran and felt her head shake slightly and her fingers tense.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Bran. ‘Although the virus has been found to survive for up to 72 hours, that’s in laboratory conditions with regulated temperatures, the changing temperatures from the car to outside and from Jon to Ghost, to Ghost returning inside will destabilise any virus, massively shortening its life. If you are still worried we can wash him as...’

‘You are not my own personal CNN, stop giving me live report alerts on Coronavirus,’ Sansa paused, ‘Or anything else.’

It was quiet without Arya. It was also slightly difficult to know what to do, how to run a campaign for the House of Representatives when the only people you see are your Campaign Manager, who never talks about anything apart from the campaign, and Pod. Pod was fine but Sansa could rarely think what to say to him and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

Of course, Bran was there, but he was intently processing figures about the economy, the epidemiologists, and various polls, so if you tried to talk to him, he just mainly spoke about whichever one he was currently researching, and generally scared Sansa more shitless than any of the rolling news coverage.

The guest house looked like a party house, lit up all day and night.

The following day Theon appeared on a motorbike, and Sansa had an extreme urge to hug him but actually managed to send him down to the Guesthouse with barely any talking. This was fine, Sansa had nothing to say to Theon, although she felt he deserved a hug. At the trial they had, of course, been separated as they were both key witnesses, and after the verdict she had been so keyed up about her victim statement, she hadn’t been able to look at anyone, not even her mother, she couldn’t remember anything from afterwards except a vague sense that she hadn’t been in her own body.

That was also the day of the North West Tonight interview, but it was fine, Bran behaved basically like a human for 7 minutes. And they invited her back three days later to talk about all the things the Democrats were doing and supporting in the State in order to address the economic and social impact of the Stay-at-Home order (it was even better because they didn’t mention TulLabs and talking about her mother’s company always made her slightly sick).

On the sixth day Sansa and Ghost found Grey skulking, in amongst the trees.

‘Could I use the House wifi? From out here?’ he asked from a more than appropriate 8 feet away.

‘Yeah of course, I’ll just get the passcode’

On the eighth day Sansa stayed up really late and weirdly sent a Facebook message to Margaery, even though she had only spoken to her once, very awkwardly, in about 7 years.

On the tenth day, Jon phoned to ask, ‘Do you have any milk, just any milk, cow’s milk, oat milk, soya milk, there’s a lot of tea, coffee and cereal being consumed here?’

‘You can bring it in a socially distanced fashion, leave it on the doorstep, then text me, you don’t even have to knock.’

‘What the fuck am I doing Jon?’ Sansa had replied and they had had a long whispered conversation about the merits of running for political office in the current climate, which had ended with Jon telling her he believed in her and that ‘you are absolutely the kind of person we need in government at the moment.’

‘You look slightly happier,’ commented Pod when she went back into her mom and dad’s bedroom for more virtual rallying of supporters and support of community groups.

Sansa spent the whole eleventh day cleaning. Brienne made Pod help strip beds and vacuum. Sansa hadn’t actually cleaned anything, apart from wiping kitchen worktops, since Hillary had lost. She hadn’t changed bedding, or even ironed her own clothes, as Nan still came 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Sansa had actually spent 117 minutes on March 13th convincing Nan that she had to stay home, and no she couldn’t come and clean in a face mask, or clean whilst 6 feet away from them because she had to shield, because she was a 67 year old asthmatic, and yes they would still keep paying her. There had been a further 48 minute conversation the following Saturday about how Nan couldn’t come and see the boys from afar, because she was still a 67 year old asthmatic. Though in fact the majority of the call was Nan inundating Sansa with questions about Daenerys, even though Sansa had merely spent 5 minutes with her on a driveway.

Because it was over 2 weeks everywhere in the house turned out to be in a, kind of, state.

‘I think you’re supposed to do this more often if you have an Alaskan Malamute.’ said Pod.

‘Yeah,’ she nodded. 

Pod suggested they set up a rota but Sansa wasn’t sure about asking Brienne to do anything. Bran actually had done his own bathroom, but he would have found the vacuum tricky, maybe if they got one of those rechargeable ones, or were there specially adapted vacuums you could attach to wheelchairs?

She mentioned the rota idea to Bran. ‘Maybe I could design one, a vacuum for wheelchair chair users, not a rota.’ said Bran, though she hadn’t asked him about that.

‘How do you do that?’

‘What?’

‘Read my mind.’

There was the normal Bran shaped pause.

‘Your thoughts tend to be fairly predictable.’ He shrugged.

Afterwards, she ended up having Zoom cocktails with Margaery. Which was enlightening. Margaery knew Daenerys, because Margaery knew everybody.

‘Hang on?’ said Margaery ‘Jon’s organised some sort of Lockdown House Party? Jon? But he doesn’t like people?’

Margaery had once tried flirting with Jon, and Jon had spent the entire 45 minute period (Margaery was persistent but she rarely wasted time) looking at Margaery as if everything she was saying was entirely alien, which was strange because, at the time, actually they were both expensively educated, privileged 20 somethings from wealthy, influential political families.

‘I should have fled to Highgarden, will all my friends, although Mother and Father and Grandmother are there so it can’t be very fun. Without any Canasta or D.A.R. bridge parties, Grandmother will probably kill them both.’

In her head Sansa said ‘I missed you’, but aloud she just laughed.

‘So Brienne’s got balls, I heard, I think you’re definitely gonna be in the House,’ Margaery paused, ‘assuming there’s an election,’ she continued laughing.

Sansa ignored the last bit, ‘You’re not supposed to say that,’ said Sansa shaking her head and smiling.

‘Yeah,’ Margaery shrugged, ‘I’m having virtual dinner with Ivanka tomorrow.’

‘Are you?’ Sansa could hear her own pitch rise.

‘No, not really, I’m in a meeting with her and like 36 other people at dinner time, they’re all gonna be really tiny and you won’t be able to work out who’s talking and half of them will have inadvertently muted themselves, it’s gonna be a riot. Almost as much of a riot as it is normally, are you sure you want to come back here?’

‘There is where the stuff happens that makes life better for the people here,’ Sansa heard herself sound quite vehement. ‘Anyway, what was I gonna do, go straight for governor?’

‘I bet that’s what Daenerys is gonna do.’ said Margaery.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, she definitely wants to rule the world.’

‘You don’t anymore?’

‘I’m learning it’s much more productive and much less hassle to be the power behind the throne.’

Sansa suddenly realised the time, ‘it’s like 3 in the morning there, you should go to bed.’

‘Nah, I’m punishing Nym by staying up.’

‘Who’s Nym?’

‘My girlfriend.’

Sansa kept in her inward little jump, ‘I thought, I heard you were with that Martell guy.’

‘Trystane? Yeah I’m with him too, but he lives in NY, so only Zoom sex from that quarter. How do you know Trystane?’

‘I just had heard of him, cos wasn’t he like Marcella’s first boyfriend?’

‘Ooh I didn’t know that,’ Margaery shrugged, ‘It makes sense though cos they were at Le Rosey at the same time, that’s definitely worth a mention during the Zoom sex.’

Sansa widened and rolled her eyes. ‘Is he some kind of Eurojetsetter?’

‘Yeah, and he’s on Instagram, he’s very pretty.’

‘He’s an influencer?’ Her pitch was rising again.

Margaery barely nodded, ‘I actually think that political parties need to be engaging more with that, it’s a whole untapped demographic. Anyway, essentially that’s my job I’m an influencer, a political influencer. And isn’t that basically Jon’s job for Bernie?’

‘He run his tech team and digital strategy.’

‘So mainly digital strategy, cos that’s how Bernie got so far. I cannot see how your brother’s had enough time to pleasure Daenerys so well she’s willing to follow him to the wilds of Washington State.’

‘He’ll have enough time soon, though.’ said Sansa and they both started rolling around laughing.

‘He’s still a real fucking winner, your brother, I never get how he does it.’

‘He’s picked the same wrong side twice in a row,’ said Sansa shaking her hands at the camera and still laughing. On the other hand, she understood what Margaery meant, he did seem to win even though he was quiet and earnest and fairly honest. No one else she knew in Politics was like that.

‘How’s Pod?’

‘How do you know Pod. He’s surely a nobody?’

‘I don’t know Pod, I’ve just heard things about Pod.’

‘What things?’

‘Essentially, that he is worth sleeping with.’

‘Who has told you this?’ Sansa couldn’t think of anything less likely than that Pod was an effective lothario and that this was being whispered about across Washington.

‘People who have had sex with Pod, it’s that good they think I need to know,’ said Margaery.

‘But you yourself have not sampled his wares?’

‘No, I am not returning to maelstrom, that’s why I’m fucking an influencer and an artist.’

‘Well I’m not having sex with anyone and that’s fine.’

‘Kay.’

Sansa realised she was exhausted. ‘I have to go bed with my Wolf.’

‘Your wolf?’ said Margaery.

Sansa flipped the camera onto Ghost.

‘I thought Jon was in the guesthouse?’

‘No, he’s my dog now. Let’s not let it be so long next time.’

‘Definitely’ said Margaery ‘In fact I’m sure to need to avoid Nym in the middle of the night by next Tuesday, so see you then.’

For once, Sansa didn’t hold Ghost as if he were a life-raft and she might sink away without him.

  
Bran had hauled himself upstairs and into Dad’s old armchair. This always made Sansa feel slightly anxious, but Bran said ‘It’s the closest I’m going to get to climbing at the moment and anyway you shouldn’t exclude disabled people from spaces based on your own anxiety about their disability, Representative Stark.’

There was lull between Zoom calls and considering appropriate social media responses and Pod had followed Bran with coffee.

‘Margaery says she thinks Daenerys will stand for Governor.’

‘Where?’ asked Pod with a frown.

‘Margaery? Margaery Tyrell?’ Brienne’s face looked slightly strange and behind her Pod gave Sansa a look she couldn’t quite read.

‘Sansa and Margaery were at Yale at the same time, they lived off campus for year together but then Margaery moved in with Joffrey. Sansa went back to campus and,’ said Bran.

‘No more,’ said Sansa holding up her hand at him. ‘So, she reckons Daenerys wants to rule the world.’

Neither Brienne or Pod looked particularly surprised about this.

‘Current data would imply that by the time Daenerys, or indeed you, or Margaery, was in a position to run for President, such a role would no longer be ruling the world.’

‘So, what you’re saying is, that if that is Daenerys’ aim, she should start focussing on premiership of China,’ said Pod.

Sansa laughed.

Brienne said ‘I think we should go through the funding numbers.’

‘Thanks for the coffee,’ Sansa said to Pod, ‘Could you look into how Politicians are using Instagram and think how we could utilise it going forward?’

‘Ok, interested in any other platforms?’

‘I don’t know, just come up with some ideas about what might work? Bran you could help.’

‘Nah, I’m writing a round-up of all the published statistics research based on South Korea’s testing so far,’ he claimed without looking up from his phone.

‘You’re an undergrad.’

‘Yeah but all my supervisor’s PhDs are busy analysing data from the Oxford-run study into…’

‘Fine.’

Sansa went over to Brienne, ‘Do you think he’d look at these?’ she whispered to Sansa.

‘I don’t like money,’ said Bran from the chair, as Sansa shook her head.  


They were all set to be reunited on the Sunday. Arya was organising some kind of family supper, which apparently involved her and Bran cooking ‘stuff, even for the vegans’.

At 5:37am the house phone rang and Sansa and Ghost both sprung up. It rang out, Sansa looked at her phone, she had 3 missed calls from Jon.

He answered on the middle of the second ring, ‘So, your internet set-up in Mom and Dad’s room was put in by the party? Right? And I’m guessing they sent someone to assess it’s security the week before lockdown?’

‘Err?’

‘Do you have Democratic Party installed and authorised broadband?’ He said very slowly.

‘Yes.’

‘And has it been recently assessed for security?’

‘Yes, on like’ Sansa yawned as she counted ‘the 12th.’

‘And have you and your campaign been working in compliance with the Democratic Party Virtual Security guidelines issued on the 7th?’

‘Yeah, cos you told me, pay attention to this and follow it to the letter. You told me, Brienne, Pod and I should personally message everyone we knew.’

‘Ok, I’m coming up with some stuff and I’m going to need the room for today, I might need other rooms too.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Well obviously Bernie’s withdrawing, and there’s some stuff we want to hold the VP to, in return for declaring for him, and Grey thought he and I could run the calls and obviously we’d be in the room together to literally to smooth any disagreements out.’

‘Grey thought?’

‘Yeah cos he can rep the VP, I can rep Bernie.’

‘Grey? What’s Grey’s actual name?’

There was a pause. Then Jon said ‘What the actual fuck?’ and hung up.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Sansa began to pace. Ghost’s fur was all bristled then he suddenly bolted off down the stairs, Sansa heard the key turned in the lock, the beeping of the security code as she followed. She stepped off the bottom step as Jon and Ghost stepped out of the vestibule.

‘Did I actually bring my little sister, who is running for the House of Reps this year, a total Biden campaign insider, and did she not fucking notice?’

At least he wasn’t shouting. Actually, he didn’t really shout ever.

Pod had appeared on the top of the stairs, Sansa looked up at him, she shook her head at him, he looked like he might shout.

Then Bran appeared.

‘You could have told me I had Andre Vermers in my guest house,’ she semi-shrieked.

‘You told me not to say anything about them,’ said Bran.

Sansa started to laugh. Jon was laughing. Bran was laughing at his siblings laughing, ‘You’re both mad,’ he said ‘Sansa would have to do something illegal or at least extremely scandalous to lose the 10th, why does she need an in with Biden campaign for?’

He followed it up with ‘I’m going back to bed, be quiet, both of you.’

‘Ok.’ said Sansa. Jon merely raised his eyebrows. ‘This is Pod.’

Jon nodded, ‘I know, morning Pod.’

‘Jon.’

‘Come down and have a coffee.’

‘Did you not know?’ said Jon.

‘I actually didn’t meet you guys when you arrived and Arya had said it was Dany’s aide, so I assumed it was Irri, in fact…’ Pod tailed off ‘I actually think Brienne’s gonna kill me for not being on this.’

Jon was looking unbearably smug.

‘Ha, you bring me one hot young Biden speech writer and you think you’re all that.’ Sansa gave him a shove and they went over to kitchen to have coffee.

‘Is he ok? In the guesthouse?’ she asked ‘Grey?’

‘He’s fine, I mean he probably thinks you have OCD, since you quarantined us all and you’re fairly inhospitable since you’re making Theon sleep in a place where there is no fucking bed for him.’ Jon paused ‘Is it a punishment?’

‘No I, it was all Bran’s idea, he is in an at risk group.’

‘So what are you guys asking the VP for?’ Pod asked.

Jon looked at him suspiciously and then back at Sansa.

Pod’s eyes were wide ‘No, no.’ he said ‘I haven’t overheard or…’

‘He wasn’t in bed with me or anything, he’s a Washingtonian, everyone knows you’re going to make demands, I was there before, at the demands.’

‘Hang on,’ said Pod, ‘Are the demands literally about to happen?’

‘Yep,’ said Sansa, ‘that’s why he’s here, to commandeer and secure my campaign office and negotiate the hell out of Varys.’

‘Do not,’ said Jon looking utterly serious, ‘Breathe a word of this to your fellow Washingtonians.’

‘Well Tyrion said locking down with Starks would be exciting.’

‘You know Tyrion?’ said Sansa surprised.

‘Yeah, I interned for him, that’s how I got the job for Brienne.’

‘Well you’ll see him this morning, I expect,’ Jon drained his coffee ‘I’m gonna go back down to the cottage to get all this stuff up.’

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. But as soon as the door closed Pod looked down and his coffee and said quietly ‘Thanks’

‘What for?’ she asked.

‘I thought he was gonna punch me.’

‘Really?’ Sansa ‘No, that’s just how he looks. I mean really, anyone who’s paying any attention to the nomination race knows what’s going on.’  
  
Brienne had a clear desk thing, so the room was tidy enough for Jon just to start setting up. Pod moved furniture as directed.

‘Why have you left the bed in here?’ asked Jon and got Pod to help him manhandle the mattress down to the basement den, with Sansa directing them. The basement den contained various boxes and shelves of things, things Mom’s ruthlessness had not got rid. There was a fencing sabre of their father’s, from college, Jon took it down and looked at it, weighted it in his hand.

‘Fencer?’ asked Pod.

‘Dad made me’ said Jon and put it back.

‘He wanted to box,’ said Sansa ‘But they wouldn’t let him.’

They all went back upstairs to take apart the divan and headboard, then Jon left Pod and Sansa to rearrange the furniture and put the bed together.

‘I’m glad you didn’t make me sleep down here,’ said Pod lying on the bed as if he was testing it. Sansa sat down on the other side with her back to him, she looked around.

‘It’s not that bad.’ She said. She thought about the bedroom Brienne was in, but it was green now, a soft calm green.

Just then Brienne appeared, a vision of Amazonian athleisure, ‘Pod can I speak to you,’ she said.

She took him out through the lower level back door by the service flat. The service flat, Sansa was thinking, that’s where she should have put Theon. She looked out, poor Pod, it was raining a little.

When they came back Sansa started to say ‘It was me…’ but Pod just shook his head at her, so she stopped and they went silently upstairs.

Jon was on the phone, and awkwardly making notes on some random scrap of paper.

‘Davos’ he mouthed at them. Then the doorbell rang and Ghost ran out past Jon. Brienne had that tight-lipped look she used on misbehaving Starks, presumably because Jon had let him into the bedroom, or campaign room or whatever it was now.

‘I’ll get that’ said Sansa. Daenerys was at the door. Sansa let her in. The rain looked worse.

It was all incredibly awkward. Ghost barked at Daenerys and wouldn’t let her out of the vestibule until Sansa made him sit.

‘I thought…’ Daenerys began, she was waving a tupperware box.

‘He’s…’ Sansa said.

‘Hi, sorry that was all wrong, I would shake your hand, or,’ Daenerys paused, ‘but I’m not sure we’re supposed to do that at the moment. It’s very nice to finally meet you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Sansa ‘It’s nice to meet you too.’

‘You’re as beautiful as Jon said.’

‘Uh-huh.’ said Sansa.

‘We don’t have time for this.’ said Bran re-emerging from his bedroom.

Sansa glared at him.

‘It’s currently 10:38 in DC.’ he said before spinning into the kitchen.

‘My brother Bran,’ Sansa shouted after him in something amounting to an introduction.

She looked at Daenerys in a way she hoped was apologetic.

‘So, I expect he’s not going to eat anything, but I can try.’ Daenerys waved the box again.

‘I’ll show you up, he’s on the phone to Davos.’

‘I gather you didn’t know who Grey was.’ Daenerys said, but she was smiling.

Sansa pushed her lips together. ‘Does Grey know I didn’t know?’

‘No.’ Daenerys voice held no promise. It was fine Sansa thought, Jon was right it would be a really good connection to make, but Bran was right too, she’d already declared for Biden, and she’d have to do something really stupid to lose the 10th, she didn’t need her hand held.

If anything, the whole chaos that followed only served to prove that; that she was ok, that this was the place she felt at home.


End file.
